Search - Luca Casagrande, Agostino Steffani, Scarlatti Camera Ensemble :: Agostino Steffani: Alarico il Baltha

Steffani deserves better than this

Stephen Midgley | Tarbrax, West Calder, UK | 08/12/2009

(1 out of 5 stars)

"Recordings of music by this outstanding and highly original baroque composer have been very thin on the ground, and it is only recently that the situation has begun to improve. In fact this same label has a fine recording of Steffani's "Sonate da Camera" and now, in addition to CDs of his glorious chamber duets, there are a couple of complete operas available with, I understand, more on the way.



Unfortunately this present set does not fit the bill at all. Agostino Steffani held prestigious musical posts at various times in his life at the courts of Munich, Hanover and Düsseldorf, and in performing his operas he was able to call on some of the finest singers of his day. As a result his vocal writing can be extremely demanding but, sadly, these demands prove to be well beyond the ability of most of the singers in this recording. Several of them do not sound at all at ease with this music and, what is more, the close, harsh recording does them no favours. Lee Ji-Young (mezzo) and Won Mi-Jung Capilupi (soprano) acquit themselves reasonably well, but the rest of the cast sound anything from mediocre to dreadful, lacking in style or feeling for the music of the period and often just plain out of tune.



The rather complicated plot involves love, lust, intrigue and betrayal, all set against the historical background of the sack of Rome by the Visigoths under their king Alaric I. Steffani's music is suitably dramatic, fascinating and original, and includes some short but effective instrumental movements which are well enough played here by the small chamber group. In fact, unlike the singers, the Scarlatti Camera Ensemble give a stylish and alert performance of their music, with lively contributions at times from trumpets and timpani, an able continuo section and some attractive scoring for a pair of recorders. But of course most of the music is for voices; many of the arias are accompanied by continuo alone, and because of the poor quality of the singing the majority of these are not a success at all. Not only are there a lot of rather unpleasant and unmusical sounds produced, but the overall impression is one of static, lifeless direction, without passion or involvement and with little sense of drama conveyed.



It was, or at least should have been, a highly worthwhile project to make one of Steffani's complete operas available to lovers of baroque music. But it was an ill-advised decision to do so without the outstanding director and cast of singers that the music requires - moreover, ones who would be fully conversant with baroque style and who could do justice to this lovely work. Sadly, then, in spite of its promising visual presentation, this set is a great disappointment and does a disservice to Steffani's music. And so it remains for other enterprising companies to bring us more from this wonderful composer.

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